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Post by quinn on Oct 11, 2013 12:45:49 GMT -5
Gives one ample opportunity to notice what they aren't, wouldn't you say? Ample! Abundant! Endless! For both of you.
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Post by quinn on Oct 11, 2013 12:46:53 GMT -5
Ample! Abundant! Endless! For both of you. The smiley faces broke.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2013 13:02:15 GMT -5
I'm not sure what ZD's different categories are but I do think there is something to it. It seems like if there is a solid sense of self it's easier to see and surpass or whatever. If it's a clueless mishmash there is less easily noticeable contrast with what is happening. Oh, interesting. I would have said the opposite. The solid-sense-of-self people would have so much more to let go of and it would be such a SHOCK! That's where I see these Dark Night of the Soul or Spiritual Crisis thingys happening. The only thing the clueless have to give up on is believing they will ever have a clue. Me, too. All of that. If you don't mind going into it...I'm curious about the "almost did me in" part. What was the struggle? Did you actually go off alone to a cabin in Alaska and then feel crazy? No I had a romantic story playing in my head about going to a cabin the woods. But none of it ever materialized. It was the theory behind it that drove my spirits down. I was already feeling extremely lonely and insecure. So then I told myself that I was so special I could actually be happy being alone. Which caused more loneliness and insecurity. The spirits went way way down so that it certainly felt like being dead was a better option than being alive. I was in this dark place for several years and started seriously thinking of ending it all. Sort of called my own bluff. When I acknowledged (to myself) that I actually needed some love things started to look up.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2013 14:24:24 GMT -5
Oh, interesting. I would have said the opposite. The solid-sense-of-self people would have so much more to let go of and it would be such a SHOCK! That's where I see these Dark Night of the Soul or Spiritual Crisis thingys happening. The only thing the clueless have to give up on is believing they will ever have a clue. Me, too. All of that. If you don't mind going into it...I'm curious about the "almost did me in" part. What was the struggle? Did you actually go off alone to a cabin in Alaska and then feel crazy? No I had a romantic story playing in my head about going to a cabin the woods. But none of it ever materialized. It was the theory behind it that drove my spirits down. I was already feeling extremely lonely and insecure. So then I told myself that I was so special I could actually be happy being alone. Which caused more loneliness and insecurity. The spirits went way way down so that it certainly felt like being dead was a better option than being alive. I was in this dark place for several years and started seriously thinking of ending it all. Sort of called my own bluff. When I acknowledged (to myself) that I actually needed some love things started to look up. Have you ever noticed that the best way to get love is to give love?! It seems illogical to get what you want by giving it away... That's probably the reason why believers in LOA often get so frustrated...
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 12, 2013 8:04:37 GMT -5
Quinn: Yes, it does. I was interested in what Klein told Segal because it indicated an approach that might help Midnight (couldn't remember his screen name). Doing the Mooji meditation seems to have triggered for him the same sort of identity loss that Segal experienced, and Klein's advice would probably be appropos--stop the habit of looking for what has disappeared, and stop telling a story that pathologizes what has happened. This would be asking him in a different way than usual to accept what has happened and move forward in a state of emptiness. My wife's story is similar to your own. She had no center, and did all kinds of things to create one. Nothing worked. Then she read Segal's story, and realized that if she ever created a self, she'd have to eventually get rid of it. Ha ha. It was therefore a relief to give up that effort. She still wants to know who she is, but she isn't suffering under the illusion that she is a little person inside the body looking at a world outside the body. I guess the best advice to give someone in that situation is to stop the part of the mind that wants to know what it is, and just be what is. What seems ironic to me is that some of us know that who we think we are is an illusion, but the illusion continues. The illusion for us is the dualistic thought structure of inside/outside. Other people don't know who they are, but want to know. I guess the illusion for them is the dualistic thought structure of personal/impersonal. Does that make sense? I'm thinking out loud, so if anyone sees a better way to explain this, please jump in.Nowhereman: I've written to the guy to ask him about the key. I can't remember what it was. I was so fascinated by his story that I didn't pay attention to the most important part of it. Ha ha. Interesting subject. I guess I can most relate to what maxprophet had to say. From my earliest memories I have always been who I am now (goes back to at least age 3, my clearest early memories are being with my Grandpa Thompson, he died when I was 4 yrs 5 months old. I felt like an adult trapped in a child's body. I always had a sense of I can't do what I need to do because everybody considers me a child. Next to being with Grandpa, I loved being alone. I didn't talk much. I had an OK sense of self because I felt no need to......interact much, and my circle was small until I started public school, I guess that would be first grade, 1958. ........And sense then I have heard probably thousands of times, You sure don't talk much..... I never knew how to just talk about ...stuff...chit-chat. I still don't know how to chit-chat. I don't get it...how to talk about nothing....... And it took me a long time to figure out that people mostly just talk without having to think about what they're going to say (I guess that would be my definition of chit-chatting, I call it ear to tongue conversation, bypassing brain). So, I didn't know how to make friends, didn't know how to talk to people...couldn't initiate conversation. I could answer questions but didn't know what to ask back. Let me say here that I had a strong sense of self, but that self unrelated to other people. That gets back to my most natural state and most comfortable state was being alone. I didn't know it until my late teens and 20's and finding out about meditation and such, but I had been a natural contemplative as a kid. My favorite forms, looking for four leaf clovers, I could do that for over and hour, easily. And my uncle had a fishing pond and I went fishing early on. When ten my parents let me go fishing alone (because I could swim). I could fish all day. Point, I could focus on my cork watching for a bite from a fish. And it was from this that I began seeing a moving pattern of....light...or something. I'm almost certain that tis is where the Mandala comes from. I could watch still water and a moving pattern would emerge from the center and spread out almost like a colorless kaleidoscope. The pattern was about 8-10 inches. The edge would move out and disappear. And I could also look into a cloudless sky and see the same. It was quite fascinating and I could look at it for great chunks of minutes, say ten to fifteen minutes at a time. I can still see it anytime looking at a cloudless sky or bright still water. I have seen a still picture of it in various places, first time in Steven Gaskin's book This Season's People. I've seen a colored for on the front cover of several books. .........anyway.....point being I meditated before I knew there was such a thing. OK, back to this self thingy. I had a strong center of self, but only when alone. When I had to interact with other people I was almost entirely lost, didn't know what to say or do. I didn't really have any friends. In fourth grade I sort of had two friends but that was really because we were library helpers while the rest of the class was doing stuff we could already do. That didn't really carry over.....much...outside library-helper time. Oh......I liked to read biographies. I loved Daniel Boone, out there all by himself blazing trails for months on end, alone. And then I discovered the mountain men. They were the first explorers into the western wilderness, the Rocky Mountains. Kit Carson was a hero. Tarzan was an early hero. I knew that when I grew up I was going to live alone like Tarzan (well, he was mostly alone...). I did well in school, that is, studies. Without really working I made mostly B's with some A's thrown in and some C's. I never made a D until 12th grade Algebra Trig, and that's because I didn't want to study.... I wanted friends but didn't know how to make friends.....I guess it's hard to make friends when you don't talk. I especially never figured out group conversation. .......Hummm.......I know this is getting too long. .......I had two dates before the age of 22, and both of these were essentially with friends.....not a "girlfriend", but girl friends......maybe more....didn't happen..... Finished HS, started college, UNCC. At about 1973 I started getting depressed but didn't know that that's what it was. Oh.......to throw in, I then had almost zero emotional intelligence. I had a little anger at the right moments, very little what you could call joy, not really happy. When I did really experience emotion, it was bewildering.....didn't know WTF was happening, but anyway....... Now, what the depression was about was life had no meaning. I had just done life up until then, you just do what you do, go to school, go see a movie every week, watch some TV, read....a lot.... But I began loosing any drive to do anything. I lost a certain momentum. In 1974 I quit college, just couldn't go anymore. I had had a part time job at UPS, quit that too. I had started my spiritual search at 17, and by this time I was going to meetings with this lady who had written a book. I had one friend who also came to the meetings. We did some stuff together mostly spiritual-related stuff, retreats etc. So, Donna was really my only friend, she had a ten year old daughter (her husband had died in an auto accident). Our former teacher had moved to Washington, and then to Colorado Springs, Colorado. So, Donna up and decided to move to Colorado. As I was doing almost nothing (I worked part time at an ice skating rink....ice skating and ice hockey were passions), Donna said she would pay me $100.00 to drive a U-Haul truck to Colorado. Well....Donna had a friend Theresa who also decided to move to Colorado, and I decided to move also. .........OK, I'll shorten this up. Things were OK in Colorado for about six months, I was making it OK. Then because of a lot of stuff, the depression came back. And then I quit my job, and then of course ran out of money. ......Then my parents said they would give me the money to move back to NC. That's all I could do. I set my goal of packing up and getting across the country. I made it back........and then didn't really do anything for a year. I lived with my parents, worked a while at UPS again, worked some at a bookstore...but those things ended. I did some stuff, skating, hockey, movies, read, listened to Bob Dylan, The Moody Blues and Cat Stevens, but mostly did nothing. I had no reason to do anything. Life held zero meaning. I needed meaning to do...... Early when I got back from Colorado I was suicidal...really, for about a week. All I could do was think....OK, no matter what, just don't kill your self. And then the desire for suicide came back the next March...1976 buy then. There was just this.....almost a physical pain. Suicide was ...it seemed ...the only way to get rid of the pain. .......and I continually had this thought, I don't care if I live or die. I could look out at the future and see.......NOTHING. And I could bare this nothing.....that life would never mean anything and there would always be this pain. I was really afraid of the future, a future with this no-meaning and pain and nothing. And then one day something clicked. When I said to myself I don't care if I live or die, something clicked. I said to myself, then, I might as well live. And I began to see a way out. OK...going to post this before I do something stupid and lose it.......and wrap it up really answering ZD's question........ sdp
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 12, 2013 8:48:04 GMT -5
This last weekend I had an interesting conversation that made me think of the young guy who tried the Mooji meditation and either (1) lost his sense of personal selfhood or (2) suffered from what psychiatrists call "depersonalization syndrome." These two things may be the same phenomena talked about differently. In either case, he did not enjoy what had happened, and wished that his old sense of selfhood would return. When Suzanne Segal had the same sort of thing happen to her, her response was similar to that of the young man--fear, horror, dismay, etc. Whether awareness continued 24/7 for the young man as Segal claimed is unknown, and her experience certainly sounds more dramatic as far as the way she described it. AAR, I re-read the part of her story where she met Jean Klein in an effort to understand what his advice was. She explained to Klein that her sense of being an individual separate person had disappeared 10 years prior, and had never returned. He replied, "You mean there is no experience of a 'me'?" Segal responded, "That's right. There's no 'me.' There used to be one, but now there isn't anymore." Klein said, "Well, that's perfect." Segal: But Jean, why is there so much anxiety? And why is there no joy?" Klein: You must stop the part of the mind that constantly keeps trying to look back at the experience. Get that part out of the way, then joy will come." Segal explains: No one else in the room could possibly have known how appropriate his words were. There was a part of the mind--perhaps what we call the self-reflective or introspective function--that kept turning to look and, finding emptiness, kept sending the message that something was wrong. It was a reflex that had developed during the years of living in the illusion of individuality, a reflex we commonly consider necessary to know ourselves. We "look within" repeatedly to determine what we think and feel, to make a study of ourselves and track our states of mind and heart. Now that there was no longer an "in" to look "into," the self-reflective reflex was adrift, but it persisted. It kept turning in and turning in, unable to come to terms with the fact that there was no "in" anymore, only emptiness. Later she writes: What I had lacked during the entire twelve-year journey was calm acceptance. For twelve years I had recived no reassurance; I had been alone. The mind did not know what to make of it all, and it constantly searched for understanding and meaning. It took close to eleven years to finally accept that mind was simply incapable of grasping the vastness of the experience of no personal self. This acceptance cleared the way for the mind to comprehend that an ungraspable experience is just that. It's neither wrong nor crazy--its simply ungraspable. Later in her book she has a quote from Ramana that seems appropriate. Ramana: The fact is that any amount of action can be performed by the jnani without his identifying himself with it in any way or imagining that he is the doer. Some power acts through his body and uses his body to get the work done. Questioner: You say the jnani sees no differences, yet it seems to me that he appreciates differences better than an ordinary man. In fact, all forms, all sounds, all tastes, etc. are the same to him as to others. If so, how can it be said that these are mere appearances? Ramana: I have said that equality is the true sign of a jnani. The very term equality implies the existence of differences. It is a unity that the jnani perceives in all differences, which I call equality. Equality does not mean ignorance of distinctions. When you have the realization, you can see that these differences are very superficial, that they are not substantial or permanent and what is essential in all of these appearances is the one truth, the real. That I call unity. The line that most interested me in Segal's account was what Klein said to her--"You must stop the part of the mind that constantly keeps trying to look back at the experience." Klein, as a person/Reality, is saying to a person/Reality, "Stop reflecting upon what happened, stop reflecting upon your story of what happened, and stop reflecting upon your interpretation of what happened. It's just a bad habit." During this last weekend someone asked me, "Do you mean to say that in the past you felt as if you were an entity inside the body looking out at the world, and that that all changed on a particular day?" I said, "Yes, isn;t that you way you experience it? " He replied, "No, I have never felt like there was someone 'in here' looking 'out there. I have never known what I am or where I was located other than this body, and I have always looked to other people to help me figure out, from their reactions, what I should think or feel." After further conversation, I wondered how many people feel as I once did, and how many feel the way this fellow described? IOW, how many people look within, reflectively, and check on their mental states, ideas, feelings, etc, and feel as if they are "inside" looking at a world "outside?" and how many people do not locate their selfhood inside at all? In my case, the "inside/outside" duality ceased on a particular day, and that is what ended the search. I realized that I was not "someone in here" looking at "a world out there;" I was Reality/the universe/beingness looking at Itself. If someone does not identify as a person "in here," what is it that makes her feel like she is separate from the world around her? Any feedback? Continued...... I actually wrote a letter to my parents describing my situation, the depression and suicidal thoughts etc, and told them I thought I would now be OK, but if not I would get professional help. I knew I needed to find meaning, that that was the key. Some years later I found and read The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross. From it I think during that period, that year, I had been going through the first night, the night of sense. But, anyway, that March of 1976 I found out about our being born as essence and that as a baby and small child we live through our essence. I came to see that this is what I was living through....my earliest memories. This was my love of being alone, my looking for four-leaf clovers, no pressure, nothing to do except just be. But then through enculturation, education and just being around other people, parents, siblings, friends of parents, other family members, we form what I have called here a cultural self. It goes by various names, personality, ego, false self. This is the self we acquire as brain storing information. And eventually most of us forget who we really are as essence and shift identity from our essence to this cultural self, our "personality". I think this is the two selves being discussed here. As we are born and grow there is a movement from essence to false self/personality/ego. For most people their essence gets covered over by personality as information as memory in the neural associative structure of our brain This is really the meaning of the Christian term being lost. We really are lost, we have lost our true self, our essence. But, we here on ST's are not mostly other people. We are in some sense lucky and our essential nature has not been completely covered over. The descriptions of many given here are for me descriptions of living through essence, there is a nondescript sense of self, but not a self in the sense that most people mean it, they "know" who they are, job/career, marriage, kids, ....etc, ordinary life. I NEVER fit in to ordinary life, still don't. ............I had another crisis about '79-'82......lots of reasons, but I didn't believe in life anymore, and I needed some reason to hang around the world of the living. Chance would have it that I found my reason, I married a woman with two kids and we had two more and I had my reason to keep living even though I really didn't "believe" in ordinary life. I got up each day and went to work to take care of my family.....but my real meaning was interior. Suzanne Segal lost the influence of cultural self, that's what died in her and that's what she missed. With that gone she lived through this undefined nondescript essential nature, who she really in fact truly was. My f**king personality is pretty-much crap and a burden, and I love being without it to the extent that that occurs.......and I work to lessen its influence, that's really stage one of what spiritual practice is about. I think for E. Tolle, personality died all at once that one day, and he began living through essence....living on park benches etc... I think that can happen, die to cultural self all at once. For most of us its gradual. I think at least that much has happened for ZD, maybe even more. I can't really say where anybody else might be here. Some of you have made light of what I see as the spiritual journey, but I'll share it again. The path is from true self (essence as described) to personality/ego/cultural self, back to essence (dying to ego/personality, meaning, dying to its influence over us), then to mature essence, then to no-self, which is living even beyond true self. I don't think we are done with the journey until we take all the energy that sustains ego/personality/cultural self out-of-us. That would be exhausting karma, taking the energy out of the three gunas. And then we move on from there. Then you can wear ego/personality/cultural self as a mask instead of being it. With me, I don't think this formation of cultural self, took. .......and the same for you other peculiar people...here ... :-) .... sdp
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Post by silver on Oct 12, 2013 8:56:55 GMT -5
Yep. Nice, nice share...I can relate to a lot of your experiences and sentiments, sdp. Just not the fishing part.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 12, 2013 12:27:19 GMT -5
Thanks silver...
In January 1974 a copy of The Tao Te Ching was on my book list for a class. I had somewhat encountered Taoism previously, but had never read the book by Lao Tsu. I got the book from the college bookstore and began reading it right then. I sat in my car in the parking lot and read the whole thing. I immediately saw myself as chapter 20 (and still do). From that book, still my favorite translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English.
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Give up learning and put an end to your troubles.
Is there a difference between yes and no? Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense! Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox. In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace, But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am. Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile, I am alone, without a place to go.
Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing. I am an idiot. Oh, yes! I am confused. Others are clear and bright, But I alone am dim and weak. Others are sharp and clever, But I alone am dull and stupid. Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea, Without direction, like the restless wind.
Everyone else is busy, But I alone am aimless and depressed. I am different. I am nourished by the great mother.
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I changed only two words from that translation as personal preference, same meaning.
sdp
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Post by zendancer on Oct 12, 2013 12:46:36 GMT -5
Thanks silver... In January 1974 a copy of The Tao Te Ching was on my book list for a class. I had somewhat encountered Taoism previously, but had never read the book by Lao Tsu. I got the book from the college bookstore and began reading it right then. I sat in my car in the parking lot and read the whole thing. I immediately saw myself as chapter 20 (and still do). From that book, still my favorite translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English. ............................... Give up learning and put an end to your troubles. Is there a difference between yes and no? Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense! Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox. In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace, But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am. Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile, I am alone, without a place to go. Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing. I am an idiot. Oh, yes! I am confused. Others are clear and bright, But I alone am dim and weak. Others are sharp and clever, But I alone am dull and stupid. Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea, Without direction, like the restless wind. Everyone else is busy, But I alone am aimless and depressed. I am different. I am nourished by the great mother. ..................... I changed only two words from that translation as personal preference, same meaning. sdp In general, I suspect that this is what Jesus was pointing to when he said, "The foxes have their holes and the birds have their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head." When you are nothing (no thing), there's no-where to go.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 12, 2013 14:57:41 GMT -5
Thanks silver... In January 1974 a copy of The Tao Te Ching was on my book list for a class. I had somewhat encountered Taoism previously, but had never read the book by Lao Tsu. I got the book from the college bookstore and began reading it right then. I sat in my car in the parking lot and read the whole thing. I immediately saw myself as chapter 20 (and still do). From that book, still my favorite translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English. ............................... Give up learning and put an end to your troubles. Is there a difference between yes and no? Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense! Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox. In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace, But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am. Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile, I am alone, without a place to go. Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing. I am an idiot. Oh, yes! I am confused. Others are clear and bright, But I alone am dim and weak. Others are sharp and clever, But I alone am dull and stupid. Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea, Without direction, like the restless wind. Everyone else is busy, But I alone am aimless and depressed. I am different. I am nourished by the great mother. ..................... I changed only two words from that translation as personal preference, same meaning. sdp In general, I suspect that this is what Jesus was pointing to when he said, "The foxes have their holes and the birds have their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head." When you are nothing (no thing), there's no-where to go. Nice, yes. I'd also say that Jesus didn't care where he ended up at the end of the day, wasn't " worried" about it, didn't know where he would end up. He just did what he did and when sleep was necessary, he'd go to sleep (maybe in a boat in a storm, even). I call that living on Jesus time. sdp
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Post by silence on Oct 12, 2013 15:06:04 GMT -5
In general, I suspect that this is what Jesus was pointing to when he said, "The foxes have their holes and the birds have their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head." When you are nothing (no thing), there's no-where to go. Nice, yes. I'd also say that Jesus didn't care where he ended up at the end of the day, wasn't " worried" about it, didn't know where he would end up. He just did what he did and when sleep was necessary, he'd go to sleep (maybe in a boat in a storm, even). I call that living on Jesus time. sdp Talk about a wild imagination.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 12, 2013 18:05:26 GMT -5
Nice, yes. I'd also say that Jesus didn't care where he ended up at the end of the day, wasn't " worried" about it, didn't know where he would end up. He just did what he did and when sleep was necessary, he'd go to sleep (maybe in a boat in a storm, even). I call that living on Jesus time. sdp Talk about a wild imagination. So, you have never read the Gospels? I presume not. sdp
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Post by nowhereman on Oct 12, 2013 18:22:57 GMT -5
Talk about a wild imagination. So, you have never read the Gospels? I presume not. sdp I have and I am with you on this..most ppl that speak like this do so from a place of extreme ignorance which simply means they have no knowledge nor education about the subject matter it's what I call gossip knowledge.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 12, 2013 19:51:46 GMT -5
So, you have never read the Gospels? I presume not. sdp I have and I am with you on this..most ppl that speak like this do so from a place of extreme ignorance which simply means they have no knowledge nor education about the subject matter it's what I call gossip knowledge. Yea, Jesus has always been my main dude and probably always will be. Lao Tsu is probably next, Chuang Tzu, Zen Master Bankei, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Socrates...and a few others thrown in....... sdp
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Post by zendancer on Oct 13, 2013 7:06:33 GMT -5
Nice, yes. I'd also say that Jesus didn't care where he ended up at the end of the day, wasn't " worried" about it, didn't know where he would end up. He just did what he did and when sleep was necessary, he'd go to sleep (maybe in a boat in a storm, even). I call that living on Jesus time. sdp Talk about a wild imagination. Any thoughts about the OP? I intended to only write "no attack" threads, but forgot to include that phrase in the title of this one. IMO it helps keep the threads focused on the OP rather than judgments about posters.
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